Broken Yolk
by oldstone
Summary: She came here to understand.  A more hopeful outlook on House and Cuddy's future that's bound to make you feel better.


**Notes: **The title derives from Ben Gibbards's song "Broken Yolk in Western Sky".

* * *

**Broken Yolk**

She wears one of his T-shirts to bed and cries until Rachel comes in and crawls onto the mattress, whispering, "Tell me where it hurts, mommy."

The two-year-old falls asleep against her stitches and it's painful but she lets her.

By daybreak she has shrieked, laughed and sobbed until any emotion is beyond reach, and in the end she is numb.

Crying in the shower doesn't count, because you can't see the tears anyway.

ooo

There is nostalgia in the air.

How else to describe the kaleidoscope of past images, beautiful, light, careless, bending the space of his empty room, triggered by a single long dark hair found between his bed sheets.

He remembers waking up in the middle of the night to Cuddy curling up against him, her knee moving over his and resting against the phantom of the quadriceps in his leg. Settling his hand against her to keep the pressure from becoming painful, he felt an unexpected unevenness in the skin on the underside of her thigh—a rare stretch mark, no doubt an unwanted leftover from her pubescence, and he was more in love than ever.

The absence of her warmth now causes more pain than his leg ever has.

ooo

A week later she has her stitches removed and is back at work full-time.

First it was not wanting anyone to know they were dating. Now it not wanting anyone to know that they're not. It helps that he barges into her office like nothing has changed, demanding her approval for procedures that will only make sense in his head, driving her up the wall with lewd comments.

The notion that the Vicodin doesn't seem to make him feel any less good than she used to burns behind her closed eyelids.

"You're picturing me naked, aren't you?" She can hear the shit-eating grin in his voice.

"I was picturing you leaving, actually."

"Why, doctor Cuddy. Was that a joke?"

She opens her eyes and fixes him with an imperious and frostbitten stare. Their eyes lock, different shades of the same colour.

"You have your approval. Please get out."

The telltale screech and bang of her office door signals his exit.

ooo

When his patient is dying and he's seated on the bench outside the hospital room, idly playing with his cane, it's just another Monday.

Except, when she passes, rather than treating him to an affectionate smile, she swallows visibly before averting her gaze. He contemplates hooking the handle of his cane around her wrist to stop her, to taunt her, to just get her attention again, but she's gathered pace since she spotted him and once again, he's too late.

He hangs his head and licks his lips, still tasting the fruity wine she drank at dinner the night before the dream collapsed.

ooo

It's a Saturday night when she finalizes her decision. It's naive and it's illegal and it took some planning—fixing a prescription, getting Julia to take Rachel for the weekend and subtly prying from Wilson the necessary information on when his bowling date with House would end.

Standing on his doorstep, she rubs at her eyes, the remnants of yesterday's make-up rendering them itchy. When she looks at the tips of her fingers they are speckled with dried out kohl.

He opens his door then and she feels her heart in her throat. His face clouds over with premonition and she gives a perfunctory nod.

"Can I come in?"

ooo

For an instant he flounders in the doorway, stunned by her effortless beauty, dark jeans and pulled-back hair.

Then she has wedged her way inside and he finds himself suddenly a foot or two too close. She pushes a rattling prescription bottle into his hand and by the time he looks up from the label she's downing a glass of water at the sink.

His voice is gruff. "Did you just—"

"Take Vicodin? Yes."

He watches her refill the glass, take another sip and sigh with something that looks like victory. Suppressing a hiccup-like burp against the back of her hand with as much ladylikeness as she can muster, she drains the rest of the water down the sink and opens the dishwasher to dispose of the glass.

"Twenty minutes till it kicks in, right?

Disbelief files his tone razor sharp. "Are you out of you mind?"

She rubs her lips together briefly and offers him a small, disarming smile. "Not yet."

ooo

"How are you feeling?"

His voice is a soothing drone pushing slowly to the forefront of her mind. Forty-five minutes have passed and they are on opposite ends of the sofa.

"Pretty much the same." It sounds feeble and tinny even to her own ears. Her lidded eyes riveting on his lilac shirt, she whispers drowsily, "I love that colour on you."

House leans close, crouching over her and she would recoil, warily sink further into the cushions, if her limbs weren't so heavy maybe. She feels the pads of his outstretched fingers on her pulse, then the back of his chapped hand again her forehead.

"Any dizziness? Nausea?"

She tips up her chin and suddenly they're in dangerous territory, sharing the same breath. It's fleeting. Then House sits back and she shakes her head, her eyes closing in something that's not quite a blink.

"Increased sex drive?"

At that her eyes snap open again, meeting his smirking ones, and she holds his gaze a split-second too long.

"No."

They both turn away and, suddenly warm inside, she wonders when and why she stopped seeing him in terms of who he is, rather than who he isn't.

ooo

He often remembers Nolan coaching him in reminding himself what's happening as an exercise to be able to fully absorb the happiness of a situation and take maximum enjoyment out of it. It's a way to increase his appreciation of life or whatever. And so that's what he's been doing.

_I am now riding my bike. I am about to take my first bite of this slice of pizza. I am about to make love to Lisa Cuddy._

And tonight: _she came here to understand._

He tucks her in silently and she mumbles a final, barely intelligible, "Seriously, House, no funny business tonight," before sleep claims her completely, the single pill enough to knock her petite body out. Now there's something she probably doesn't want a repeat experience of.

He returns to the living room to clean up their empty glasses and secure the bolt on the front door. Retrieving the Vicodin bottle he pocketed earlier, he chuckles briefly at her physical intolerance.

He flushes the remaining pills through the toilet. When he spoons up behind her, he's taken none.


End file.
